Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} East of Eden by John Steinbeck East of Eden. In Chapter 34 of East of Eden, the narrator articulates his belief that the struggle between good and evil is the one recurring narrative of human history. In fact, he goes so far as to state that there “is no other story.” Writing from the perspective of the Christian tradition, the narrator contends that every human individual since Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel has struggled with the choice between good and evil. The narrator writes that each person, when looking back on his or her life, “will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well—or ill?” Because the struggle is an individual one, the narrator implies that no progress is made through the generations—each person must reenact the same ancient story and grapple with the same ancient problems. East of Eden dramatizes this perpetual conflict between good and evil in the society of the Salinas Valley as a whole and within the individuals of the Trask and Hamilton families in particular. The main characters of the novel, generation after generation, wrestle with the problem of evil. Cyrus, the patriarch of the Trask family, apparently chooses evil by stealing money during his term as a U.S. Army administrator. Charles succumbs to jealousy of his brother, Adam. Cathy takes the path of evil at every turn, manipulating and wounding others for her own benefit. Cal, worried that he has inherited a legacy of sin from his mother, struggles perhaps the hardest of all the characters. Ultimately, the novel ends on a positive note, as Cal accepts the possibility and responsibility of free will—of free choice between good and evil. This optimistic ending is tempered, however, by our knowledge that future generations will endlessly replay the same struggle that Cal and his ancestors have endured. The Freedom to Overcome Evil. Although one of the fundamental ideas in East of Eden is that evil is an innate and inescapable human problem, the novel also sets forth hope that each individual has the freedom to overcome evil by his or her own choice. This idea of free choice is encapsulated in the Hebrew word timshel, the meaning of which Adam’s housekeeper, Lee, has researched. The word, which translates to “thou mayest,” appears in the story of Cain and Abel in the Bible, when God tells Cain that he has the freedom to choose to overcome sin. Lee sees this idea of free will as central to the human condition—in fact, he says that timshel might be the “most important word in the world.” The other characters in East of Eden have different opinions regarding whether or not individuals can truly overcome evil by free choice. Cathy, for instance, insists that there is only evil in the world, so she immerses herself in it and exploits other people’s human weaknesses to her own advantage. Aron, meanwhile, is only able to face the good in the world, and the evil that his mother embodies ultimately proves too much for him to handle. Cal struggles to find a middle road between these two extremes. Ultimately, he is successful, as he accepts Lee’s belief that evil can be overcome and that morality is a free choice, regardless of the fact that all humans are imperfect, sinful beings. With this newfound knowledge, Cal is able to go forward into a new life with Abra, confident that he controls his own moral destiny. The Pain of Paternal Rejection. The dynamics of father-son relationships, especially the issue of a father’s preference for one son over another, are central to the story told in East of Eden. In the first generation of the Trask family covered in the novel, Cyrus displays a clear preference for Adam over Charles, for no discernible reason. Charles, who seems to love his father far more than Adam does, senses this disapproval from his father and resents it deeply. Charles’s resentment comes to a head when Cyrus prefers the birthday gift Adam gives him (a stray puppy, to which Adam gives hardly any thought) to the gift Charles gives him (a knife for which Charles works hard to save money in order to buy). Once again, Cyrus’s preference for the puppy over the knife appears to be completely arbitrary, and the disapproval enrages Charles. Later, Adam displays the same kind of arbitrary favoritism in his relationships with his own sons, Aron and Cal. Aron grows up to be somewhat cowardly and fragile, while Cal courageously struggles to stay on the path of good amid numerous temptations toward evil. Nonetheless, Adam perceives Aron as ambitious and promising but dismisses Cal as shiftless and directionless. Steinbeck patterns these father-son relationships in the Trask family on an example in the Bible—the relationships that the brothers Cain and Abel have with God, who represents a father figure to both of them. When Cain and Abel both offer sacrifices to God (mirrored in Steinbeck’s novel by Charles’s and Adam’s birthday gifts to Cyrus), God favors Abel’s sacrifice over Cain’s. Conspicuously, neither God nor the narrator of the story in the Bible offers any reason or justification for God’s preference. In East of Eden, Adam mentions that, upon reading the story of Cain and Abel, he felt “a little outraged at God” for favoring Abel so arbitrarily. However, as we see, Adam favors Aron over Cal just as arbitrarily as God favors Abel over Cain. Adam does not realize the depth of his favoritism until he is on his deathbed, when he acknowledges the mistake he has made and grants his final blessing to Cal. East of Eden by John Steinbeck. Completing the CAPTCHA proves you are a human and gives you temporary access to the web property. What can I do to prevent this in the future? If you are on a personal connection, like at home, you can run an anti-virus scan on your device to make sure it is not infected with malware. If you are at an office or shared network, you can ask the network administrator to run a scan across the network looking for misconfigured or infected devices. Another way to prevent getting this page in the future is to use Privacy Pass. You may need to download version 2.0 now from the Chrome Web Store. Cloudflare Ray ID: 65fc3c94c8345363 • Your IP : 116.202.236.252 • Performance & security by Cloudflare. East of Eden — John Steinbeck. In his journal, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck called East of Eden "the first book," and indeed it has the primordial power and simplicity of myth. Set in the rich farmland of California's Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families— the Trasks and the Hamiltons—whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel. The masterpiece of Steinbeck’s later years, East of Eden is a work in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love's absence. Adapted for the 1955 film directed by Elia Kazan introducing James Dean, and read by thousands as the book that brought Oprah’s Book Club back, East of Eden has remained vitally present in American culture for over half a century. This Centennial edition, specially designed to commemorate one hundred years of Steinbeck, features french flaps and deckle-edged pages. For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to- date translations by award-winning translato" East of Eden. East of Eden is a novel by John Steinbeck that was first published in 1952. Summary. Read a Plot Overview of the entire book or a chapter by chapter Summary and Analysis. Summary & Analysis. Characters. See a complete list of the characters in East of Eden and in-depth analyses of Cal Trask, Aron Trask, Adam Trask, Cathy Ames, and Samuel Hamilton. Character List Cal Trask Aron Trask Adam Trask Cathy Ames Samuel Hamilton. Main Ideas. Here's where you'll find analysis about the book as a whole. Themes Motifs Symbols Key Facts. Quotes. Find the quotes you need to support your essay, or refresh your memory of the book by reading these key quotes. East of Eden. In the late nineteenth century, a man named Samuel Hamilton settles in the Salinas Valley in northern California. He brings his strict but loving wife, Liza, with him from Ireland. Although Samuel is well respected in the community, he never becomes a wealthy man. The Hamiltons go on to have nine children and become a prominent family in the valley. Adam Trask, meanwhile, settles in the valley with his pregnant wife Cathy where he eventually becomes friends with Samuel Hamilton. Before moving to California, Adam lives on a farm in Connecticut with his half-brother, Charles. The dark and moody Charles resents the fact that his and Adam’s father, Cyrus, has always favored the good-natured Adam. Upon his death, Cyrus leaves his sons a large and unexpected fortune, probably stolen during his days as an administrator in the U.S. Army. Despite their newfound wealth, Adam and Charles remain unable to get along. Charles is disgusted at his brother’s marriage to Cathy, who, unbeknownst to Adam or Charles, is a former prostitute who murdered her parents and stole their money. Although Charles despises Cathy, he takes her into his bed after she drugs Adam on their wedding night. Adam and Cathy move to California, as Adam proves unable to live peacefully with Charles in Connecticut. In Salinas, Cathy learns she is pregnant and attempts to abort her baby in order to prevent any furtherance of ties to her husband. She is desperate to escape Adam despite the fact that he loves her and provides for her. The abortion is unsuccessful, and Cathy eventually gives birth to twins, Aron and Caleb (Cal). It is clear from the start, however, that Cathy does not care about the infants and wants to leave the household as soon as possible. One day, Cathy shoots Adam, flees the house, and moves to Salinas proper to resume her life as a prostitute. Adam decides to cover for Cathy by lying to the local sheriff and saying that his gunshot wound was an accident. Cathy wins the trust of Faye, the madam of a local brothel, then poisons her and fools the doctors and other prostitutes into thinking that Faye died naturally. Cathy assumes control of the brothel and starts to blackmail powerful men in Salinas with photographs of them performing sadomasochistic sex acts with her and her prostitutes. To protect the dazed Adam and his twin boys, neither Samuel Hamilton nor Lee, Adam’s housekeeper, tells Adam or the boys that Cathy works at a brothel. As the twins grow older, Aron manifests his father’s good heart, whereas Cal exhibits his mother’s ruthlessness and tendency to manipulate. By the time they reach early adolescence, however, Cal actively struggles against his dark side and prays to God to make him more like Aron. Adam, meanwhile, remains melancholy and listless for years after Cathy’s departure. In order to jolt Adam out of his despondency, Samuel finally tells him the truth about Cathy. Samuel dies soon afterward. After Samuel’s funeral, Adam visits Cathy at the brothel. Her deteriorating body and cynical, vulgar talk make Adam realize that he can now move on and forget her, as she is a repugnant creature who has become irrelevant to his life. Cathy, however, is desperate to retain power over Adam. She even offers to have sex with him to keep him in the brothel and prove that he is no better than she. Adam refuses and leaves with a serene smile. After his triumph over Cathy, Adam becomes a livelier and more committed father to his boys. Adam decides to move the family off the ranch and into the town of Salinas so that Aron and Cal can attend school. The twins are assigned to the seventh grade, and Aron begins a relationship with Abra, the goodhearted daughter of a corrupt county supervisor. Cal continues to struggle with his dark side, and when he finally happens to discover the truth about his mother, he believes that her evil has been passed down to him. But Adam’s housekeeper, Lee, who has extensively researched the biblical story of Cain and Abel, advises Cal that God intends each individual to choose his own moral destiny rather than be constrained by the legacy of his parents. This idea, encapsulated by the Hebrew word timshel (meaning “thou mayest”), counters Cal’s fatalistic idea that he has inherited his mother’s evil and sin. Aron gradually withdraws into religious fervor in order to shield himself from the corruption of the world—an approach that Abra and Lee consider cowardly. Adam, meanwhile, squanders the family fortune on a poorly executed business venture involving refrigerated shipping of vegetables. Aron graduates from high school early and leaves for Stanford University. Adam misses Aron terribly, thinking him smarter and more ambitious than Cal. However, Cal, in collaboration with Will Hamilton, one of Samuel’s sons, works secretly to earn back the fortune his father lost on the failed refrigeration business. Cal also hopes to make enough money to pay for Aron’s tuition at Stanford. In the strained economy of World War I, Will and Cal buy beans from local farmers at an unfairly low price and sell the beans, in turn, to desperate British buyers at an unfairly high price. The venture nets Cal thousands of dollars, which he plans to give to his father as a gift at Thanksgiving. Aron, who is miserable at Stanford, comes home for Thanksgiving. Adam is thrilled to see Aron but appalled by Cal’s gift of money. Adam considers the money to be earned dishonestly and tells Cal to give it back to the farmers from whom he stole it. Enraged and jealous of Adam’s obvious preference for Aron, Cal loses control of his anger and rashly tells Aron the truth about their mother, Cathy. When Cal takes Aron to the brothel to show him that Cathy is still alive, the revelation crushes the fragile Aron, who screams incoherently and runs away. The next day, the shattered Aron joins the Army, while Cathy, horrified by her son’s reaction to her, commits suicide by overdosing on morphine. She leaves her entire fortune—part of it inherited from Charles, part of it earned through blackmail and prostitution—to Aron. When Adam discovers that Aron has joined the Army, he lapses into a state of shock. Lee talks to Cal about the idea of timshel and urges Cal to remember that, despite his guilt, he is a normal, flawed human being—not an aberrant embodiment of evil. This discussion makes Cal feel somewhat better, and he is able to begin a relationship with Abra, who is no longer in love with Aron. A telegram arrives informing the family that Aron has been killed in World War I. Adam has a severe stroke upon hearing the news, and Lee brings Abra and Cal to see Adam on his deathbed. Lee informs Adam that the guilt-stricken Cal told Aron about their mother only because Cal was convinced that their father loved Aron more than him. Lee asks Adam to offer his blessing to Cal before he dies. At this, Adam raises his hand and whispers the single word timshel.